Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>A number of red flags checked today after the storm departed this morniing leaving deep snow and wind drifts. I had a few minor collapses in my travels today, no recent avalanches, but the winds may have filled in some of the natural activity. </p>
After the snow and clouds lifted it was a beautiful day in the Uintas. Seems like a foot and a half of new snow up around the pass with the wind making the travel conditions a bit of a work out. It was a great storm and the place looks much improved, however the Bald Mt. area always needs more snow to cover the large boulders.
Over a foot of new snow and wind is sitting on some old weak faceted snow near the bottom of the snow pack. I did not experience a lot of big loud collapses moving around and an isolated column of snow would only break and not propagate a crack. Places that received the wind I would think the slab is thicker and more likely to produce an avalanche.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>It seemed to me there just was not the water weight with the new snow, I had some small collapses, but no big rolling collapses. Breaking trail was tough with the new snow and I was still breaking through into old snow. I could only get an isolated column of snow to break, but it did propagate a fracture. Just did not seem like the water weight was there where I visited today. In the wind zone this could be a different story where a stiff wind slab could easily over load the weak snow structure.</p> <p>I did not venture into terrain where the winds have surely put a slab over the weak sugary snow and avalanches are more likely in these places. </p>
Great storm for the Uintas, anywhere from 6-10" down around the north slope trail head and a solid foot and more up at the Bald Mt. area. It was difficult moving around today with the new snow and wind which made for slow going. Still not much of a base out there, I was still breaking into old snow and hitting lots of rocks.